th powder. Again a force
of Americans was compelled to suffer the bitter penalty of ignorance.
The soldiers and crews ran wild in the bush a hundred miles from any
settlement. It was not possible to organize them. They fled in all
directions. Solomon had taken with him a bark canoe. This he carried,
heading eastward and followed by a large company, poorly provisioned.
A number of the ships' boats which had been lowered--and moved, before
the destruction began, were carried on the advice of Solomon.
Fortunately this party was not pursued. Nearly every man in it had his
gun and ammunition. The scout had picked up a goodly outfit of axes
and shovels and put them in the boats. He organized his retreat with
sentries, rear guard, signals and a plan of defense. The carriers were
shifted every hour. After two days of hard travel through the deep
woods they came to a lake more than two miles long and about half as
wide. Their provisions were gone save a few biscuit and a sack of
salt. There were sixty-four men in the party.

Solomon organized a drive. A great loop of weary men was flung around
the end of the lake more than a mile from its shore. Then they began
approaching the camp, barking like dogs as they advanced. In this
manner three deer and a moose were driven to the water and slain.
These relieved the pangs of hunger and insured the party, for some
little time, against starvation. They were, however, a long way from
help in an unknown wilderness with a prospect of deadly hardships.
Solomon knew that the streams in this territory ran toward the sea and
for that reason he had burdened the party with boats and tools.

The able scout explored a long stretch of the lake's outlet which
flowed toward the south. It had a considerable channel but not enough
water for boats or canoes even. That night he began cutting timber for
a dam at the end of the lake above its outlet. Near sundown, next day,
the dam was finished and the water began rising. A rain hurried the
process. Two days later the big water plane had begun to spill into
its outlet and flood the near meadow flats. The party got the boats in
place some twenty rods below and ready to be launched. Solomon drove
the plug out of his dam and the pent-up water began to pour through.
The stream was soon flooded and the boats floating. Thus with a
spirited water horse to carry them they began their journey to the sea.
Men stood in the bow and stern of eac